NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December — the first time it’s been below 7% in five years. But the drop was for all the wrong reasons.

The rate fell because many people got fed up, stopped looking for work and dropped out of the labor force altogether. (The jobless have to be actively looking for work in order to be counted as unemployed by the Labor Department.)

In December, 347,000 people dropped out of the workforce. That pushed the participation rate, which is the percentage of the population in the labor force, down to 62.8%. That’s the lowest it’s been since early 1978.  Read more